Given that this community has generally positive view of Stalin, I’m curious what he did that my comrades find irredeemable or out of line. Since it’s easy to criticize the Soviet Union from a western perspective, bonus points if you explain how this was detrimental to the development of socialism and/or communism.

  • cult@lemmy.ml
    01·
    3 years ago

    For which part? The bit about Lenin’s warning is from Lenin’s Testament[0] in the post-script:

    Stalin is too coarse and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealing among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a Secretary-General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead who in all other respects differs from Comrade Stalin in having only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious, etc. This circumstance may appear to be a negligible detail. But I think that from the standpoint of safeguards against a split and from the standpoint of what I wrote above about the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky it is not a [minor] detail, but it is a detail which can assume decisive importance.

    Also in the testament he said of Stalin

    I think that Stalin’s haste and his infatuation with pure administration, together with his spite against the notorious “nationalist-socialism” [Stalin critised the minority nations for not being “internationalist” because they did want to unite with Russia], played a fatal role here. In politics spite generally plays the basest of roles.

    Also there was 21 members and 10 candidate members of the Central Committee at the time of the Revolution in 1917. You can look up the history of each of the members and see that, for the ones who made it through till Lenin’s death, Stalin had them executed in order to consolidate all power. These members include Zinoviev and Kamenev who represented the “left wing” of the party. Trotsky was the only original member that survived but he was banished and never returned to Russia. Stalin would use him as a scapegoat for many years afterwards; using alleged involvement in “Trotskyist groups” as an excuse to imprison or kill other members of the party.

    [0] https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/index.htm

    • holdengreen@lemmygrad.ml
      1·
      3 years ago

      What does ‘consolidate all power’ mean? He still must have plenty of allies left to run a whole country.

      Also did Lenin ever name a preferred successor?

    • NikkiB@lemmygrad.mlOP
      1·
      3 years ago

      You’ve been mislead in a very serious way. That “warning,” which is more critical of Trotsky than of Stalin, comes from Stalin’s only conflict with Lenin, which happened to take place during Lenin’s last days, over Stalin’s supposed “brutality” in Georgia. Since Lenin only got this information second-hand (he was bedridden), he never published that “testament.” Once he recovered, he began to investigate personally. After he did, Stalin was acquitted.

      On another note, those “left-wing Bolsheviks” like Zinoviev and Kamenev betrayed Lenin at the very hour of the revolution. Trotsky had been against it until that hour. Stalin and Lenin had been working together to bring about the revolution for decades, longer than any of these “left-wing Bolsheviks,” and on top of that he never backstabbed Lenin. The idea that Lenin and Trotsky of all people were close friends and Stalin was a distant, shifty politician lurking in the background waiting to take power is absurd. Stalin was the only legitimate successor to Lenin, especially since he built the party into power even before Lenin’s death.

      Stalin saved the world from the Nazis too, so you might want to show a little bit of respect for this great leader. I think part of that respect involves doing your research before you unknowingly reiterate these lies in an explicitly pro-AES community.

      • cult@lemmy.ml
        0·
        3 years ago

        he never published that “testament.” Once he recovered, he began to investigate personally. After he did, Stalin was acquitted.

        Lenin never recovered from this… This testament came from the series of strokes that lead to his death

        Stalin and Lenin had been working together to bring about the revolution for decades

        Also I think you’re seriously confused. Zinoviev was part of the Bolsheviks since it split with the Mensheviks in 1903. Same with Kamenev. Stalin joined in 1917. Hell, the first time he even met Lenin was in 1906. And he was in and out of prison until the revolution (he was only out of prison for a total of 2 years between 1908 and 1917) so there’s no way he could have possibly been “working together to bring about the revolution for decades”

        Furthermore Lenin was (once again) forced into exile in 1907. He wouldn’t even return to Russia until April of 1917 (hence the “April Theses”)

        This is just a matter of basic dates. Like shit you could have simply looked up. Please don’t rudely ask me to do my research when you can’t even get the very basics right.

        Next time you reply I hope you’ve at least learned to use Google

        • NikkiB@lemmygrad.mlOP
          1·
          3 years ago

          http://209.151.22.101/Journalists/Strong-AL/TheStalinEra-AL-Strong-1956.pdf

          Lenin recovered from his second stroke enough to investigate the Georgia matter himself before suffering his third stroke and dying. You make it sound like Lenin was warning the world of the evils of Stalin on his deathbed, and that’s just not what happened.

          And Stalin and Lenin had been colleagues and friends for twenty years by this time. They knew each other since 1905. And was he not in prison for working on the revolutionary socialist project?

          And I apologize for being rude, but this is just contrary to everything I’ve learned about Stalin. Frankly, it feels indistinguishable from liberal histories of Stalin, which have been extremely falsified. So when I say you’ve been mislead in a serious way, I’m being quite serious.